Cumulus
by meowjesty
Summary: Story about a girl who gains the ability to fly.


Chapter 1 - Dove in the Sky

A dream. It was a dream, but not like any other dream. This was a dream, about the sky. She awoke, breathing heavily. She was falling in this dream. It was painful. She was gasping for air, she thought he would die. She knew he read from somewhere that you could die in your dreams, but she did not think it would almost happen to herself. "Cumulus.." The word came out so easily, but she quickly covered her mouth. She closed her eyes, she had no idea why she said it. "Why am I talking about clouds?" Her face fell into her hands, exhaling deeply. She got up and moved to her blinds to shed some light in the dark place. It was a foggy day. Dreary, wet, rainy 7:30 morning. Such a nice way to start the week. "Heh.." She arched her eyebrows and licked her lips as she headed for the bathroom to wash up. "Clouds and falling to my death." She said as she reached for the shower knob. When she got in, the water felt neutral against her skin; just the way she liked it.

Her name was Pythias. She had medium length auburn hair, a few freckles here and there, fair skin, and grey eyes. Her parents were not conventional by any means. They were obsessed with Greek culture and philosophies. They even had a thing for the Greek gods themselves and studied their stories and how their people praised and worshiped them. So what did they did with their obsession? They put it all in their daughter. She did not mind though. Having the name of the woman married to Aristotle had its own little quirks, at least to her. "Why didn't they just call me Icarus?" She laughed a bit as she ran the neutral water over the soapy areas on her body and through her hair in the process of conditioning. She exhaled deeply again, rough morning. She quickly hopped out of the shower and proceeded to dry herself off. She grabbed her toothpaste and brush and gave herself a quick oral cleaning; she was running late. She quickly dried off her auburn hair as it frizzed up as she went through her closet. "Gotta find something nice today." She tapped her chin and picked out some ordinary clothing. "I need to go clothe shopping.." She thought about it then laughed. "Har har I'm broke! What am I saying?" She quickly put on the semi-skinny jeans and the kind of eh crop top; it was teal. You get what you get with teal crop tops. She tied her hair up in a bun with pieces of the hair drooping down in the back and over her face, then grabbed her horn rimmed glasses and headed downstairs.

Pythias noticed her parents sitting downstairs getting ready to go to work; they were both around the same age, mid fifties. Her father had nice hair, as in it was not receding yet and it was not all too grey. She always believed her hair would stay auburn because of it. Her mom had a few crow's feet here and there, but boy was she beautiful. She remembered her dad showing her some pictures of how her mom used to look one Christmas, she was lovely. "You look just like your mother," He told her from time to time. She still lived at home, she was glad though, at least she had some support before she went out into the cruel, cruel world. "Okay, so uh, I'm going to work." She scurried around looking for her keys and some kind of nourishment. She settled on a grain bar, one of those nutrgrain bars or whatever. Of course, her parents were not in the listening mood as they were just killing time. "History channel, original.." She said under her breath. They always watched the History channel, mostly to see if their research or interviews would pop up in a special. She exhaled and ran her hands down her face as she grabbed her keys. They were the most eccentric keys with trinkets and such attached to the ring, though she would often take them off before she would head into work. "Okay, I'm gone!" She exclaimed sarcastically, her parents could only say "Yeah," or "Uh huh." She looked at the two of them solemnly with her grey eyes. She opened the door to a foggy wasteland of people jogging or biking in the distance. "Ah the suburbs." She said as she walked to her car. "Shoot.." She stomped her foot and started to head back up to the house; she had forgotten her purse. She walked in and noticed it on the counter, what an odd place for her to leave it. She would normally leave it by the door so she would not forget it. She thought nothing of it and grabbed it, then she heard something on the television, about the clouds. It was weird, she was getting enough clouds and it had only been an hour. She shook her head and left the house again and headed for her car.

She was driving down the cul-de-sac so that she could get that turn around. She was a very lazy driver, she could not parallel park or back out really to save her life. Once that whole thing was done, she pushed in her CD of some obscure bands and drove on through the lessening fog. The kind of started to poke it rays through the dense fog, but she was not counting on it. It drizzled on and off for a while as she drove, then it just stopped. She looked in the rear view mirror and smiled, at least the grey skies were bringing her eyes out. She arrived though, kind of happy to get inside the building and out of this rain. If she had known, she probably would have dress a bit better; but summer rains, you can never predict them. Pythias scurried into the building to get out of the drizzle and into the bookstore, though she noticed some suspicious guys a block down the street. She did not think much of it so she slipped into the back to get started on putting some books in their respected areas. "Ah, book about clouds. Great." She half smiled and wheeled the cart around. She stacked books upon books in the quiet, this must have been her favorite part about her job. All the quiet, well except for the padding of the rain against the roof and windows. She looked towards to windows and realized it had turned into rain. She just stared for a bit then collected her thoughts and started stacking again. After an hour of stacking books, it seemed to be opening time, not that anyone was looking to come inside, though it was weird that her manager or really anyone had not gotten to work yet. Normally they would be here before herself, already setting things up. "Maybe I should just, cut my losses and go home." She figured if they were not there already, then they might not be coming in at all. They probably sent her an e-mail and she just overlooked it.

She started to wheel the cart back to the back of the store when she heard some conversation she pushed the cart behind a book case and peeked around the corner; it was those suspicious guys. "Hmm..." They started slipping on masks and that is when she lost it. Pythias pulled her body behind the bookcase and started doing some breathing exercises before she could flip out. She heard a loud crash and covered her mouth to cover the squeal. She got up quietly and pulled the cart back, maybe she could push it at them and escape. She heard them chit chatting about where the money was and how crappy this establishment was. She furrowed her brow in anger gripped her hands around the cart handle. As they came around the corner, she quickly pushed the cart into two of them knocking them to the ground. She counted in her head, there were four that came in. The other one had a gun pointed to her head as the fourth watched. Her eyes widened and then shut quickly as she heard him pulling back on the gun. She could only think of clouds and birds quickly flying through the air. Her heart raced, blue hues taking over her thoughts, it all happened so fast. She felt the ground beneath her leaving as if she were floating. She opened her eyes, she had to look down at the thugs. She could not have grown four feet in a second, she was only five eight. The thugs were looking at her with a shocked expression, and as she looked down she too had a shocked expression. She was floating, and for a pretty good minute. The thug with the gun gained his regained senses and held the gun higher, and let out a yell. "Freak!" The words stung a bit, but she lunged forward in flight and rammed herself against him, knocking the gun out of his hand. He hit the wall pretty hard, making a few back breaking noises. She quickly turned to face the remaining thug that stood who picked up the gun and started opening fire. The first bullet missed, but the second grazed her leg ripping through her jeans and causing her to yelp. She ignored the pain though with the adrenaline rush and all, and flew at him with a blind fury. She gave it too much lift though, and sent him flying through the sky light. She panicked and swallowed hard, then flew up to get him. He was quickly descending to the ground. She tried to reach for his hand but missed. He screamed as he fell quicker and quicker towards the pavement. Then she heard it, the splatter of bones and everything else splashing against the pavement. She came down for a rough landing and knelt down.

The light had gone out of his eyes, they were now just blank brown hues. The tears came as her face fell into her hands. She just wanted to stop a robbery. She quickly got up as she felt pain returning to her leg from the graze, and she tried to fly, but she ascend. She exhaled deeply and stood firmly trying to remember the feeling of when she first flew; happiness, delight, joy, freedom. Of course, she had killed someone and injured three others, so that seemed impossible for the moment. "I'll just walk to my car then." She knelt down again and placed her fingers over his eyes and pushed his eye lids down for him. "Least I can do.." She staggered around the corner as her leg dripped more blood. She went into the bathroom of the bookstore and grabbed as many paper towels as she could hold. She dabbed them against her leg and winced and exhaled. She ran hot water over the next set and held them there for a bit. She decided to get some small rope, which they normally use to tie a bundle set of books; it just adds to the whole old book aesthetic. She took the rope and tied it tight around the paper towels and groaned in pain. "That should do." She called the police hoping they would get there in time before the three thugs came to. Of course she was not planning on sticking around. What would she tell the cops? That she flew around beating thugs up? And there is no way they would believe a young bookstore employee held her own against some thugs. Sexism right? But she thought about the whole murder of the other guy. "I'm gonna have to bury a body." She immediately came to that conclusion, mostly because of the mystery thrillers she reads. "No one's gonna believe a suicide during a robbery." She thought about it again, none of the other guys had seen what happened. Maybe she could get away with it. "Fuck, am I gonna be the villain?" She shook her head, she took care of some thugs, she should be fine. She shook the whole thing and proceeded to her car. She thought maybe the cops could piece together some random things and just let it be.

Once she dragged herself to her car, she threw her bag in the backseat and quickly opened the driver door and carefully got it. She felt the need to prop her leg up, but the bleeding was lessening so she felt it would be fine until she got home. As she drove home, the rain clouds started to clear, slowly but surely. She could see a bit of blue as the clouds started breaking apart and separating. She half smiled, images of the robbers death still in her head. At least there was some sun shining down on this troubled girl. When she arrived back home, she noticed that her parents were gone. She sighed with relief and rested her head against the steering wheel. "Good, now they won't see me bleeding all over the hard wood." She reached back for her bag in the back seat, wincing as her leg rubbed against the seat and then the arm rest. Once out of the car, she casually walked up to the door as if nothing happened, don't want the neighbors getting suspicious. "Ah finally, home." She closed the door behind her and headed upstairs to her room. She left her bag on the counter and slowly climbed up what seemed to be torture devices as the pain gnawed at her leg. "Peroxide, yeah that stuff." She didn't want to think about the stinging pain that would occur when she poured it all over her leg. She moved to the bathroom of her parents once she got upstairs and started shimmying out of her jeans. This was a brutal task with the paper towels underneath as they peeled off of her skin. "Well the semi tough parts over." She sat herself down on the toilet seat and moved her shoulders around preparing for the stingy pain. "Here we go.." She lifted her head as the smell from the peroxide started filling the air. It stung of course, but not as much as she anticipated, so she was fine. She ran it over a few times and dabbed at it with some toilet paper as it fizzled out every now and again. She didn't feel like putting something on it until it closed up some more so she just left it without a band-aid or anything.

Once the surgery had finished, she moved towards her room, feeling a little better. She plopped herself down on the bed and laid on her back. She opened the shades to get a good look at the sky; it was clearing up a lot faster now. She saw a cloud, a circular one. It was rather strange since these kind of clouds didn't really swing by on the east. She mostly saw them in pictures in exotic places like islands or more interesting places in Europe. She recognized the cloud though, she saw it on the cover of the cloud book back at the book store. "Lenticulares.." She said to herself in almost a whisper. It almost looked like some kind of UFO or flying saucer, it was very interesting. The more she looked at the cloud, the closer she felt to it, as if she were floating. She looked to the side and she was, she was at least three feet off of her bed. "Clouds?" It seemed as if those gave her a happy feeling, that joyous feeling that she needed to keep flying. She chuckled and thought of a name for herself. "Cumulus." She thought it would make a good superhero name or something of the sort. "But costumes are over done." She turned her body and placed her hands against her face and placed her legs next to them kicking them. She thought about some things, about the life of a superhero and what it would mean for her. Should she wear a mask? Was she even going to make some villain counterparts? Who would she need to protect? She really only had her parents, no friends or relationships or anything. She picked at her bottom lip and looked around. She actually realized how small her room was. No bathroom, small television, the one drawer took up some space. She felt confined and caged, something she had been feeling her whole life when she thought about it. "I've gotta get out."

Pythias knew she still had a while since work was canceled officially now. Maybe she could actually practice the whole flying thing, but she would have to change and do something about the bullet graze on her leg. She moved her body into an upright standing kind of position and floated towards her parents bedroom wobbling every so often in the air. She actually took their room in for a second and realized how large it was; their room dwarfed hers. She scoffed and went into their bathroom to get open the medical-kit to get the bandages. She realized that it was in the lower cabinets and tried descending. She was so good at the ascending part but she could not get the descending down to save her life. Instead, she moved around so that she was legs in the air and face down. She reached her arms out and pulled open the cabinet and out came the medical-kit; they sure sucked at putting things away. She sighed in annoyance and closed her eyes thinking of something landing like a plane or a helicopter; she didn't feel anything. She thought more about it and thought of a bird flapping its wings extra hard to slow down before landing, she thought of a butterfly slowly coming down to a flower and then she felt it. She felt her hands touching the ground and she let the rest of herself come down feet first. "Getting the hang of this." She said proudly as she picked up the kit and opened it moving things around for the bandages. Once she found then, she placed them back in the cabinet along with the other items that fell out. She wrapped her leg out pretty tight and took the remaining bandages with her, never knowing when she would need them again.

She clasped her hands together and went to her closet. "Okay, not a costume, but at least sky colors. Come on closet, whatcha got for me." She looked deep into her closet and found some white tights. She threw them on her bed and put that in the maybe category. Next, there were some nice jean shorts that were all cut up, they looked so punk she just had to wear them. She decided to slip the tights on under them. She knew exactly what shirt she wanted to wear; it was blue and cut up and frayed on the sleeves and back when she was going through her raging teen with an attitude rebel phase. It was nice and blank and she thought it would go great with the other pieces, but it was missing something. An idea popped into her head and she thought it would be the best thing to slap onto a shoddy randomly put together non-costume; she drew a jagged C with a lightning bolt coming through it right on the center of the shirt. She decided to go with a white shirt underneath as not to make it awkward for herself. She knew she knew she could come back later and get something way warmer and better on but for now she just had to get out of the house. She had decided on a name now and everything, Cumulus. She could fly and Lord knows what else. Her grey eyes were filling up with happiness as she looked at herself in the mirror, she kept her hair in a floppy bun though, it added ease. She thought that maybe she should invest in some contacts since glasses flying off everyone ten minutes would not be so ideal. But she was happy; she was kind of becoming a hero. It was funny, she was such an introvert, and now she was thinking about getting outside and saving people's lives.


End file.
